


Christmas

by Nichomen



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Brotherly Affection, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 05:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nichomen/pseuds/Nichomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All this childish insecurity was him and no one else. All the little tiny photo pieces of his past that made a portfolio to reason his hate of something as inane as Christmas suddenly seemed so immature and so needless but so key  to what made him who he was being right now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Another request from tumblr! Soft Angst I guess, and a few months too early for Christmas heh... I'll be sure to write a Halloween fic in December.

It had been years since Jason last celebrated Christmas, and as far as he remembered, Christmas was never _this_.

Christmas wasn’t Bruce in his long abandoned family room, with rose colors and red in his cheeks, an affectionate gleam in his eyes. It wasn’t Damian scrooging about in a tacky Christmas sweater that was an exact _miniature_ of the one Dick was wearing, with a big fat dove and little blinking LED lights knitted into it. Cass shouldn’t be here wearing something other than black, looking deadly in a fluffy pink robe Stephanie insisted she put on _immediately_ after opening the box. Even Babs was nestled in a familiar way besides Dick, picking popcorn out of his hair flung with deadly precision from Damian’s small nest across the room in a fit of (admittedly well behaved) rage.

They were all talking in such a familiar way, of Christmases past spent together. Dick was so excited to recount Tim’s first Christmas at the manor, and revel in everyone being here for Damian’s first Christmas today. Stephanie looked to Tim, talking about a particularly intimate holiday spent together, turning his face a faint shade of red that was one part nervous and two parts sentimental; even Cass, obviously familiar with the story, chimed in about the events. Alfred chided Dick for making an unnecessary spectacle of Damian’s embarrassment, and countered his whining with a particularly embarrassing story of Dick’s early Christmases at the manor, much to both Bab’s and Damian’s amusement.

And Jason… Jason was sitting stiffly in an armchair against the wall, having a hard time taking it all in. Trying to keep up with stories everyone else already knew, places they’d been to without him, jokes they told when he wasn’t there. The weight of the woolen sweater in his lap was getting heavy, its comfortable warmth burning into a searing heat against his palms. His plain, starchy t-shirt made him feel like the unlit bulb in a string of Christmas lights. 

Jason wasn’t so oblivious he couldn’t hear the sour note in this Christmas Choir.

This wasn’t what his Christmas was. This was the Christmas he saw in family television, sans laugh-track, with a moral about “ _Family Matters!_ ” flashing none too subtly at the end. This was the thing of legends he hadn’t believed in since his father came tumbling through the door smelling of cheap liquor and an empty wallet instead of Santa Claus and his infinite bag of gifts.

Christmas was an empty room without a tree and minimal heating, staring at the tinsel strung loosely on the window of his neighbor’s across the alleyway.

Christmas was cold and quiet in the manor with the singular smell of Alfred’s cookies and a glass of milk, though Jason never really did get a chance to believe in Santa.

Christmas was sharing a small, beat down shack in Fuck-Knows, Russia with a team of human-trafficking scumbags, waiting for the chance to abandon the shadows and celebrate some well needed Silent Night Explosions.

Christmas was…

Christmas was the small part of Jason that still believed he was alone.

And—if not everything else—Christmas was never Tim standing in front of Jason with a small box wrapped in black and red and gold, an unsure smile on his face, wearing a dark red sweater that was sickeningly appropriate for Christmas morning.

This was the moment Jason regretted accepting Alfred’s invitation for Christmas at the manor.

“I don’t want it.”

The time it took for Tim’s expression to fall was impressive, and the time it took for the room to go silent even more so. Bruce looked up from the framed photo of Thomas and Martha Wayne from an old, forgotten publicity photo taken long ago, one Tim had restored and framed as a gift to him.

“Jason—” he couldn’t help but laugh at Bruce’s gentle tone of voice saying his name.

“No, look, I’m sorry but all of this,” happiness, joy, laughter, love, affection, “just doesn’t suit me. Look, I can see you’re all happy, really, but I think I’m gonna go.”

Jason stood from the chair, calm, mechanical, and slipped on the sweater in an attempt at saying _no really, I’m okay_.

“Thanks for the sweater.” 

The room was still silent as Jason shut the door.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The closest safe house was in the heart of Gotham city, and funny thing was, the heart of Gotham City where Jason Todd holed himself away was the most devoid of Christmas spirit.

There was no tinsel on the wall, or warm hearth fire; there wasn’t a tree or gifts or _A Christmas Carol_ playing on repeat. It was just Jason and Kevlar and his Red Hood ready to try and forget December 25, ready to spend the holidays how _he_ remembered it.

Christmas was blood and sweat and solitude.

But before he could don the mask of Red Hood and become someone other than Jason Todd (or until he was too tired to remember what the hell Jingle Bells was about,) the door swung open a little too loud for the silence he would have preferred.

“Jason—it’s Christmas.”

Dick’s voice, but not just one set of footsteps. Jason turned to see both Dick and Tim barge and slip inside respectively.

“Like I said, that’s great, but it’s December twenty-sixth in some parts of the world, and I just thought I’d get a head start.”

“What went wrong Jason? What do we have to do to get you to come back—Bruce—Alfred—hell, _I_ really want you to come back. We’re a family—“

Jason’s laugh was loud, guttural, and a little painful. It was uncomfortable, ricocheting off the walls and hitting them like shrapnel, making Jason have to wipe away a few dry tears.

“Family? No, you guys are family,” he had to take a few calming breaths, between the horribly wide grin and the shaking in his chest. He had to breathe.

“You, Tim, Cass, the kid, hell, even Babs and _Steph_ are your family,” Jason’s snort was loud and abrasive as he tossed the helmet back onto the bed, pivoting on his heel to fall back onto his crinkled sheets. “A family isn’t just blood or names on paper. You guys talk and laugh, have a rowdy good time. Family can roll their eyes at your shitty jokes without feeling like a huge ass. You all trust each other, you all have _history_ ,” and for a brief moment, his voice went soft. “ _Good_ history.”

This time Jason’s mask came off in a twitch of agitation, tossing it against the wall with a solid slap. He was getting fidgety, being civilized wouldn’t last; his walls were coming down faster than his pride would admit. He wanted to blame it on the little blinking red and green lights all over Dick’s fucking sweater, or the way Tim was trying to look stern with freaking bed-head, but he _couldn’t_ , because he knew it was all him.

All this childish insecurity was _him_ and no one else. All the little tiny photo pieces of his past that made a portfolio to reason his hate of something as inane as Christmas suddenly seemed so immature and so needless but so key to what made him who he was being right now.

Maybe it wasn’t a good enough reason for them, but to him, it was everything. 

Before Dick could continue, Tim stepped forward, hand gripping Dick’s shoulder for the brief moment he passed. Nestled against his side was that same damn present from before.

“Take it.”

“Tim—“

“No, it’s alright Dick.”

He held the box over Jason’s chest, waiting for him to receive it. “As far as I’m concerned, this belongs to _you_.”

“I don’t want it.”

“I know,” Tim’s voice was clipped, his voice as Red Robin. It was only a subtle change from who he was as Tim Drake, but somehow, it felt completely different; it held the type of determination and power that made you question which was the real him, and who would ultimately consume who he was. “And I don’t know why you won’t take it, because I’m not you. I don’t know if you feel like you don’t deserve it because you didn’t get me anything, or you just plain don’t like me…”

He paused to hear the hitch in Jason’s breath. He opened his hand, forcing Jason to catch the box as it fell

“…but to me, Christmas isn’t a day about giving. It’s a day for being selfish. I got you this gift because I wanted to see you happy, and feel good about myself for giving it. I wanted to be selfish and believe you wanted to be a part of what I want to think is _my_ family. It’s selfish, I know, to force you to take this gift from me, and selfish to force you to be my brother…”

The stern look on Tim’s face began to slip away, back to the unsure one from hours ago. The smile, small and quiet, unsure and…hopeful; a small undertone Jason hadn’t seen before.

“…but right here, right now, it’s Christmas, and I really want to get what I want, you know?”

And as silently as he’d stepped forward, he stepped back, an eager expression on his face. Jason scoffed, watching Dick steadying a grip on Tim’s shoulder, matching his eager expression, unusually quiet. He was cornered, despite immediately cataloguing exactly twelve effective escape routes from his position at that moment. But instead his fingers traced the edges of the wrapping paper, picking at the tape before tearing the black and red and gold apart, only to be met with a plain white box to be opened again. Within, though, was a slim black picture frame—what else, Tim had gotten everyone else a similar, personalized gift—face up, glass catching the glint of the light bulb hanging over Jason’s head, bright and burning. 

Jason was silent, before thumbing the photo behind the glass, pulling it out of the box.

First he saw the stars, beaming against the black of the sky. The shadow against it was in the shape of the bat, tiny white slits where eyes would be, though formless, gleamed with something Jason saw as, for a moment, affection. Then was the streak of cheery yellow and Christmas greens and reds; but it wasn’t trees or lights or even a cheesy Santa Claus.

It was him and a smile even brighter than the stars.

“Where the hell did you get this,” was the unsurprising sentence that fell from Jason’s lips. He suddenly felt the need to mask his face, whether it was with his helmet or the small domino flung helplessly to the floor, he didn’t care; as long as no one could see whatever unknown, unfamiliar emotion was warping his hopefully stoic expression right now.

“I took it, a few years ago.”

Tim’s voice was excited, but washed with a nervous hint. Dick stood silently behind, letting go of his grip from Tim as the younger stepped forward again.

“It was… it was Christmas Eve and I snuck out. I knew I was getting a camera for Christmas, so I opened it a little early and decided I’d give it a test run,” Tim’s smile was beaming, trying to peer over the frame to see the image, “just after midnight… you know, Christmas. I heard someone laugh, in the empty streets. I thought I would be the only one out, but when I looked up, there you were.

“You know, you saw me and laughed again, and you sounded so happy like you were having the best time of your life.”

Tim laughed then, too, as if he were there all over again, looking up at the little flickering light above Jason’s head.

“The best Christmas I ever had was one I like to think I spent with you, and I just thought,” Jason looked up as Tim paused, catching his younger brother’s confident expression; but there was an trace of sheepishness, the same expression you’d make giving your heart to another.

“I had this funny feeling that you being part of my Christmas again would make me feel the same way.”

Jason was silent, Dick was silent, and for the first time, Tim’s feet made an audibly tiny shuffling noise to fill the void. He still looked forward, a soldier’s poise with a boy’s face, fists flinched at his sides and lips pressed in a straight line. 

Jason shifted, expression lost as he set the frame behind him. He remembered that night, how he’d begged Bruce to let him go on patrol.

_“But it’s Christmas, Master Jason—wouldn’t you rather be opening your presents at that ungodly hour?”_

_Alfred couldn’t hide the small grin on his face when he’d said it. Even Bruce looked exasperated._

_But they were happy, to see the way Jason stubbornly, eagerly, shook his head._

_“Hell no—what more could a kid want than to be Robin? That’s like Christmas all year ‘round, you can’t buy anything that’s as good as Robin feels.”_

He remembered the biting wind lashing against his face, the sound of his fist slamming into flesh and the groan of dirt bags beneath his feet. He remembered his laughter breaking the silence beneath the bat’s wings and the faint click of a camera shutter beneath him.

Then there was the singular smell of cookies and milk at his tableside when he crawled into bed early Christmas morning, and the massive, familiar looming silhouette that tucked him in tenderly as he drifted off to sleep, not waking up until Christmas had passed. That night he’d had a peculiarly sweet dream of pearl drops and swordfights, blanketed by the strange warmth of a mother and father’s love. When he had woken up, however, the feeling had disappeared like ghostly figures he couldn’t put a name to, and continued living as he’d normally done.

It was a sweet memory he’d let slip, and found again in the grip of another. The lost chapter of Jason Todd’s greatest Christmas forgotten and remembered again, one selfish night he wanted only to feel on top of the world via the Gotham City Skyline.

He blinked out of his thoughts, looking back at Tim, and back at Dick, who may have been standing there for only moments or minutes, before getting up again to walk toward the half-open door.

“I’ll stay for one family photo, then I’m gone. Now get out and wait for me unless you want to see my junk hanging out while I change.”

The smile on Tim and Dick’s faces should not have been nearly as blinding as Jason saw them to be when they left.

But to be fair, neither should the smile on his face be either.


End file.
